Celebrating Our Women : Lailatu Wilfred
This women’s month, we are celebrating the wonderful work that the ladies of Asiliado on a daily basis.
Get to know the inspiring Lailatu, chef at our all-female run camp in the Serengeti, Dunia Camp. Lailatu’s story is a special one – in 2014, she was a recipient of Asilia’s Scholarship Fund and has only grown from strength to strength since then!
We caught up with Lailatu last year and asked her to tell us how things were going, you can see what she had to say here. This time around, we wanted to find out a bit more about the lady behind the legend, please take a moment to read about our lovely Lailatu and be sure to keep an eye out for more blog posts celebratingsome of the other incredible women we are so blessed to work with!
– Tell us a bit about yourself and what it is that you do?
My name is Lailatu Wilfred Kivuyo, I am 24 years old. I come from a small village called Sambwa in Dodoma Region Kondoa District, I work with Asilia Africa at Dunia Camp as a chef.
– How did your journey with Asilia begin?
Because Asilia are involved in local community support and also are eco-friendly – this is how my journey started. In my village there is water source which passed through the Tarangire National Park, it is a big help for a lot of animals to survive. Asilia were thinking of how to say thank to Sambwa Villagers for their efforts of water source conservation.
Asilia chose five youth for an interview and they ware looking for one who would win a scholarship – I was so happy to hear that I was the one who got the scholarship and employment in Asilia, I am now a part of the Asilia family and I am proud of it!
– What, would you say, is the most rewarding thing about your work?
To me, there is nothing greater than Asilia. I started as a waitress but now am a chef. I really appreciate Asilia, also I like the program which Asilia has, we do training every season which means they jump us to another step when we are ready – which is how I became the chef at Dunia.
– What would be your message to other women who are also interested in working in a safari camp?
I experienced that everyone can do any work. Through Dunia Camp which is a ladies camp, I can see from manager, guides to casual members are ladies. This makes us confident and builds us up so that we can be anyone we want.
My advice to other ladies who are interested in working in safari camps is they have to fight until they get what they want or they reach their dreams because nothing is impossible.
